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[p. 9]
He walked through the entrance doors that opened for him automatically, and back into the heat of the early evening. He put down the suitcase and clicked his fingers for a cab. When the driver leaned toward him, he said, "Kennedy. British Airways Terminal." Ahead of him lay the world.
[p. 11]
Thelma was eight years old. In two days she would be nine. She had two front teeth missing from her upper jaw. When she grinned, her lips drawn back, the cutting edges of the two new teeth showed just clear of the gum. She grinned at strangers and at the man in the boulangerie. His name was Pierre. Each morning she said, "Good morning, Pierre." He grinned back at her and said, "Good morning, Thel-ma."
[pp. 11-12]
But she didn't grin at her mother. It was late afternoon. The full sun was already over the sea and the air was rich with the smell of pines. From the window of the living room in the wooden villa she could see people swimming in the sea or lying flat on their backs on the beach.
She said to her mother, "I don't want a party."
Mrs. Davies said, "But darling, it's your birthday. You'll be nine years old. Isn't that marvelous?"
"I don't want Uncle David to come," said Thelma.
"But why not? He wants to come. He wants to come to your party. He's got a great big present for you. Don't you want a present?"
"Not from Uncle David."
"Darling, why not?"
"I don't like Uncle David."
"Thelma, he's always been so kind to you. You can't say that. He's taken you out and he's given you presents. You've been all over the place with him."
"He's not my Daddy."
Mrs. Davies felt quite impotent. The sudden flush of fury brought with it a countersensation of guilt. The child's remark was so self-evident. David was not her father. Yet behind the remark, who knew what depths of misery lay? Mrs. Davies knew what the death of her husband had meant to herself. The panic sense of loss, aloneness, and isolation. The brief passage of time had numbed the sensation without removing it. David, in all that dreadful time, had been an unfailing support.
"Darling," she said at last. "Of course he's not Daddy. No one could ever take Daddy's place. No one. But he is a friend--a good friend. Mummy doesn't know what she would have done without him. But Daddy--Daddy's dead. We can't have him back. We have to--get used to it." As she said it, the last remark sounded brutal, and she put out her arms in a wide spontaneous gesture and took the little girl into them.
[pp. 13-17]
Richard had locked the cellar door. It was cool under the villa. The whitewashed brick walls were deep pink in the dim glow of the photographic light. When Thelma knocked on the cellar door, Richard shouted, "Go away."
"I've got a lollipop for you," said Thelma. "It's melting."
"I don't want it. I'm busy," said her brother.
She bent a little to put her eye to the keyhole. It was pitch dark inside the cellar, or else he had left the key in the lock. She looked at the bottom of the door, but there was no light coming from beneath it.
"It's melting," she said. "Let me in."
"Go away."
"What are you doing?"
"Mind your own business."
She heard the chink of glass. She heard him turn on the tap. The water splashed loudly on the bottom of the earthenware sink. She waited until he turned off the tap. She licked her own lollipop, then she said, "It's running all over my hand."
"Shut up."
"Let me in." She kicked the bottom of the door.
"Go away!"
"Richard--what are you doing?"
"Mind your own business."
"I'll tell if you don't let me in."
"Go on, tell. What have you got to tell about?"
"You know."
"Shut up. I'm developing pictures. I can't let you in. Go away."
"About Madame Girard."
The sound of chinking glass inside the cellar stopped. She heard him walk to the door. "What about Madame Girard?" he said. He didn't sound cross anymore. He sounded anxious.
"You know," said Thelma, licking her thumb where the melted lollipop had run down it.
"Hang on," said Richard. "Stay there."
She heard him moving around in the cellar. Something fell to the floor with a wooden clatter. Richard muttered. Thelma put her ear to the door, but as she did so her brother opened it, took her by the shoulder, and pulled her into the cellar. He closed the door again and locked it. Then he put on the main light. "Well? About Madame Girard?"
Thelma looked around the cellar. Richard had never let her in before. There was a tap over by the far wall and a sink underneath it. To the right of the sink was a bench. On the bench Richard had arranged his photographic equipment--little white glass trays, bottles with brown labels, a clock that gave a loud tick. The ceiling was curved like the tunnels of the Underground in London. But it was whitewashed, and the Underground was all black. Near the sink, a wooden stool lay on its side on the floor.
"What are you doing?" said Thelma.
"I've told you."
"Why are you always doing it?"
"What about Madame Girard?" said Richard.
"Here's your lollipop."
She held out the melting stick of ice toward him.
"I said what about Madame Girard? What did you mean by that?"
Thelma sniffed. "I saw you," she said.
"When?"
"On Tuesday."
"Where?"
"I can't remember," said Thelma.
She dropped one of the ice sticks in the sink and turned on the tap. It stained the water bright pink.
Richard turned off the tap, took hold of her shoulders, and turned her around to face him. A length of lank fair hair slipped down his forehead. His face was thin and long. He looked very cross. He shook her and said, "Where?"
He wasn't hurting her. She looked up at him for a moment, then said, "Upstairs."
"Well," said Richard. "What's wrong with that? She cleans for us. She's got to be upstairs sometime. There's nothing in that, is there?"
"No," said Thelma.
"Well?"
Richard had gone a little pale. He brushed the fair hair up off his forehead with a hand.
"She hadn't got any clothes on," said Thelma.
"Of course she had."
"She hadn't."
Richard took his hands off her shoulders. He took the dripping lollipop that she was still holding for him and went to the sink. he turned on the tap and pushed the melting piece of ice under the stream of water. The water splashed up on his forearms and left them a light pink color. He put his arms under the tap and washed off the color, then took a piece of toweling from a nail on the wall and dried his arms. He looked very busy.
"How did you see?" he said.
"I heard you go upstairs and I heard you laugh," said Thelma. "You left the door open. I could see through the crack."
"Nothing in that," said Richard.
"Why are you frightened?" said Thelma.
"I'm not frightened. I was taking photographs--art studies. If I'm going to be a photographer. . . . What's wrong in that?"
"Oh, nothing," said Thelma. "I suppose."
She picked up one of the little glass trays and tilted it slightly so that the liquid it contained ran to one side.
"Look," said Richard. "Put it down."
"What is it?"
"It's a chemical."
"What's it for?"
"Put it down. It's for fixing the prints. It might burn you."
"Can I see them--the pictures of Madame Girard?"
"No," said Richard. "Now come on--clear out."
He took her arm and moved her to the door.
"It doesn't matter if Mummy knows about the pictures, does it?" said Thelma. She was wiping her hands on her dress.
"You wouldn't tell her? You wouldn't dare!"
"I might have to. I don't think she likes Madame Girard."
"Something terrible will happen to you one day," said Richard.
"Can I see them?"
"No. Because you can't keep quiet about anything."
"Yes, I can. What Mummy and Uncle David did to Daddy--I never told anybody about that. Not after you told me not to."
"I told you that for your own good. If you go around spreading lies about people . . ."
"It's not a lie. I heard them."
Richard looked at her. She looked back at him with wide blue eyes.
"All right, all right," said Richard. She lived in a fantasy world. "But if you say anything to anybody about Madame Girard--anybody--I'll kill you."
She grinned. "All right," she said.
Richard went to the bench and took out a large envelope from one of the drawers. He took out a dozen glossy prints and gave them to her, but as she put out her hand to take them, he said, "Look at that hand! Wash it before you put it on these."
She washed her hands under the tap and dried them on the piece of toweling. Then she took the pictures and looked through them. They showed Madame Girard in a series of nude poses.
"Is she pretty?" said Thelma.
"She's all right," said Richard.
"She looks a bit fat."
"No, she doesn't. All grownups look like that."
"She's got hair in funny places."
"Here," said Richard, "Give me them."
He took the photographs from her and put them in the envelope. Then he put the envelope back in the drawer and closed it.
"If you say anything, I'll kill you," said Richard.
"I shan't say anything," said Thelma.
"Now clear off, I'm busy."
"Can you lend me a franc for some sweets?"
"Your teeth will rot," said Richard, putting a hand in his pocket.
Thelma took the money and grinned.
[p. 17]
The next day Uncle David came. He was short and round and dark-haired and he wore glasses. When he arrived he stopped the car in front of the villa and sounded the horn. It was a little after midday. Mrs. Davies came out of the kitchen wearing a short check apron.
She called, "Thelma, it's Uncle David!"
But Thelma had been sitting on the steps outside the villa and when Mrs. Davies opened the front door Uncle David had already picked up the little girl and was spinning her around and around in his arms.
[pp. 19-20]
She followed him through the open double doors into the villa. The table was laid for lunch. In the middle were two bottles of red wine.
"Lovely place you've got for yourselves," said Uncle David, stopping in the middle of the room and looking around.
The walls were lined with pine boarding and the room looked directly west to the rolling waters of the Atlantic. The table was of bright yellow pine. The plates, the cutlery, the glasses, all glistened against the bare wood surface. The room seemed somehow alight with brilliance and polish. On the pine-boarded ceiling, reflections from the sea shimmered and changed shape.
"My!" said Uncle David, the suitcases still in his hands. "And to think that while you've been enjoying yourself here, I've been sitting in my office in the middle of stuffy old London. Well--lead on. Lets have a look at this room of mine."
Thelma climbed the stairs with the parcel still clutched to her chest. Uncle David followed with the two suitcases and the coat draped over one arm.
The room faced the sea and looked down on the veranda and porch over the front door. All the windows had been opened wide. The air smelled of pines and strange sea odors. A huge bowl of roses stood on a little table by the bed. Uncle David smiled when he saw them and bent his head to smell their perfume. He looked very, very happy. The happiness made him still more jovial. He put down his cases and dropped the coat on the bed. Then he went to the window facing the sea, undid the single button of his jacket, and breathed in and out in a noisy, ostentatious way, raising his arms and his head as he breathed in and deflating himself like an old car tire as he breathed out. At last he turned, his face bright pink with the unaccustomed exertion, and saw Thelma with the parcel still clutched to her in both arms.
[pp. 22-23]
Thelma wasn't looking at them. She was looking across at the villa to her right, watching the new family moving in. They had a big car that was parked outside the villa. The man was taking suitcases out of the trunk and putting them on the veranda. The woman had already gone inside the villa. She was wearing a red and white summer dress. Her feet were bare. She had a striped scarf tied on her head and she wore sunglasses. A little girl was trying to lift a big suitcase from the veranda and take it into the villa. Thelma put her head on one side and squinted her left eye to keep out the glare from the sea. The little girl on the veranda gave up her attempt to lift the case and dragged it into the villa. In a moment she came out again and took hold of the handle of a second case. She had long dark hair and she wore sunglasses with enormous lenses that obscured most of her face.
Thelma stopped listening to what her mother and Uncle David were saying. She was watching the little girl. She got up, her head still on one side, her left eye still squinted. She brushed her short hair off her forehead, stepped down onto the sand, and began to walk slowly toward the other villa. She had the tip of one finger in her mouth. When she was within ten yards of the villa, she stopped. She looked at the open door of the villa and then at the car. The man was leaning inside. The letters GB had been stuck on the back of the car just above the registration plate.
The man backed out of the car and straightened up. He wore a pink cravat, tucked into the open neck of his shirt. He was tall and strong. Much taller and slimmer than Uncle David. His arms were full of coats. He had a transistor radio in his hand. He closed the car door with his foot, then turned toward the house.
When he saw Thelma, he said, "Hello there."
"Hello," said Thelma. She took her finger out of her mouth and grinned at him.
"You staying here?" said the man.
"Over there," said Thelma, half-turning and pointing to the villa where Uncle David and her mother were still talking earnestly on the veranda.
[p. 24]
He walked from the car, up the steps, and into the villa. Thelma could hear him calling, "Liz! Found a little friend for you!"
Thelma walked around the car. It was pale blue with bright metal flashings that reflected the glare from the sea. On the bar above the front fender was a row of little badges. Thelma bent down to look at them. Some were all metal with intertwining designs, others were enameled in brilliant colors. She put out a fingertip and touched the surface of one of them. It had a picture on it of a man with a beard and a long stick, wading through a stream with a child on his back. Under the picture, the words "St. Christopher protect thee" stood out in deep red. When she looked at her fingertip it was covered in dust. She wiped it on her dress.
The man was standing on the veranda with the little dark-haired girl at his side. He looked around and said, "Well, bless me. She's gone. She was standing just there. I thought it might be someone for you to play with."
Thelma stood up and the man said, "Ah, there you are. I thought you'd hopped it. Come and meet Elizabeth. Here. Liz--say hello."
"Hello," said Elizabeth.
"Hello," said Thelma.
"Don't be shy, Liz. It's not like you. Go and ask her in for a minute." The man turned to Thelma and said, "Come and have a Coke--that's if they've turned the fridge on."
Thelma walked up the steps and stood in front of the man. He said, "This is Elizabeth. Shake hands, Liz."
The two little girls shook hands. They were looking at each other, trying to decide what they thought. The man was laughing. Thelma looked up at him and grinned.
"And what shall we call you?" said the man.
"Thelma Davies," said Thelma. She pronounced her first name "Felma" because of her two missing teeth.
"Thelma," said the man. "Well. I'm Mr. Harrison." He bent down and looked at Thelma. "I say," he said, touching her upper lip with the tip of a finger. "Somebody take a swipe at you? Somebody knock your teeth out?"
"They fell out," said Thelma.
[pp. 25-26]
Thelma and Elizabeth sat on two of the canvas chairs and looked at one another. Mr. Harrison came out with two cans of Coke and a tin of biscuits. he opened the Cokes and pushed straws into the cans. "There we are," he said, and turned back through the open doors. The little girls could hear him call to Mrs. Harrison in some other part of the villa.
"I'm nine tomorrow," said Thelma.
"I'm nine now," said Elizabeth.
"I'm having a party."
"When?" said Elizabeth.
"Tomorrow--on my birthday."
"Can I come?"
"If you like."
Both of them sucked at their straws. When Thelma had come to the end of her Coke, she made a loud sucking noise and tilted the can to get every last drop out of it.
Elizabeth said, "If you want another, you can have one."
"No thanks," said Thelma.
They sat back in the canvas chairs. Their feet were an inch or two from the floor. Elizabeth swung her legs. Thelma put a fingertip in her mouth and looked at Elizabeth. When Elizabeth looked at her with her large brown eyes, Thelma grinned and Elizabeth smiled.
"What's it like here?" said Elizabeth.
"All right," said Thelma.
"I expect I'll get bored," said Elizabeth.
"I expect so," said Thelma.
[p. 30]
"Let's have a Coke," said Elizabeth.
"I've left my money," said Thelma.
"Can we put it on the bill?"
"I don't think so."
[pp. 33-34]
He saw the paper lying on the table beside his beer glass and picked it up. "The Villa Printemps," he said, reading from the paper. "Do you know where it is?"
He pronounced the word "Print-emps," and he didn't sound French to Thelma. On the other hand, he didn't really sound English.
Elizabeth shook her head. Thelma nodded.
"You do?" he cried, folding the paper and stuffing it into his pants pocket.
"Yes," said Thelma. The gap in her teeth got in the way of the final s and the word came out as "Yef."
"Well, am I glad!" the man said, leaning back in his chair again as if he was very relieved. "And do you think you can show me where it is?"
Thelma didn't say anything. She grinned and looked at the glass of cold beer standing on the table.
The man caught her look and asked suddenly, "Hey, can you manage a Coke or something? I'm not sure what you young ladies drink these days."
Thelma nodded and nudged Elizabeth. Elizabeth said, "Phew! Thanks. It is hot."
[pp. 34-35]
Madame brought a tray and put it down on the next table. She opened the two cans of cola and poured the contents into two glasses. She put a glass in front of each of the little girls and laid a paper-covered straw by the side of each glass.
"Thanks," said Elizabeth.
"Thanks," said Thelma.
The man took out a roll of notes, pulled off the outside one, and give it to Madame. Thelma looked at the roll of money and then looked at Elizabeth. Elizabeth was taking the paper off the straw. Her hair was long and black, and Thelma thought it looked very beautiful. She would have liked to put out a hand and touch it.
[pp. 36-38]
He paused and then asked, a touch of genuine curiosity in his voice, "That is right, huh? Ten or eleven?"
"Nearly ten," said Elizabeth.
"Nearly ten," said Thelma.
"Oh, you liar!" cried Elizabeth, turning to Thelma. "You told me nine tomorrow!"
"Well," said Thelma, defending herself quickly. "Nine tomorrow. Then ten."
"She's having a party," said Elizabeth.
"A party!" Burger cried, with an enthusiasm that suggested that the idea of having a party to celebrate a birthday was entirely novel to him.
Thelma wondered where exactly he came from if they didn't have birthday parties. She asked, "Can you come?" She was anxious to get away from the subject of her exact age. She didn't like being called a liar and she didn't want Bob to think of her as one.
"Well, I say--what a nice idea," said Burger. "But maybe we'd better ask your parents first, huh?"
"My daddy's dead," said Thelma. "I've only got an uncle."
"Only an uncle," mused Elizabeth, as if she found something very attractive in the idea. Then she turned to Thelma and said, "But you told me . . ."
"Good God," muttered Burger. A sudden flash of sympathy ran through him. He thought of his own daughter, Patty. She was even younger than this kid. He began to feel guilty all over again, but he pushed the feeling aside. That was over--done with. No point in raking over old ground. He'd made his decision and the past was the past. Yet he couldn't help asking, "You mean you've nobody? No mommy . . .?"
"And a mummy," Thelma admitted. "Uncle David and Mummy."
Burger didn't feel quite so bad. He said, "That's tough. I'm sorry. Still, there's the party. I expect you're getting all kinds of presents."
"I expect so," said Thelma. The idea didn't excite her.
"What's your favorite present?" asked Burger, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. He was still trying not to identify this kid with Patty. "Suppose you'd got the whole world to choose from--what would you choose, hm?"
Thelma thought for a moment. The expression on her face still showed no real excitement. Finally she said, "A camera."
"A camera?" said Burger. "Well, that'd be something." The answer surprised him. He couldn't see a little girl getting much of a kick out of snapping photos. Still, it only went to show what a gap there was between kids and grownups. You couldn't really figure out a kid's mind, however much you tried. "And where are you having this party?" he asked.
"Down there," said Thelma, pointing across the open cobbled square toward the distant beach. "Where we're staying. It's called Les Pins sur Mer. It's a villa."
"Les Pins sur--well," said Burger, struggling with the words. "Nice name."
"It means 'the pines by the sea,'" Elizabeth cut in.
Thelma looked at her. She'd have preferred to explain it to Bob herself. She began to wonder if Elizabeth really could become her best friend.
"Well," said Burger. "I guess we'd better be finding this place of mine." He wasn't quite as tall as Thelma had expected, but he was taller than Uncle David and he looked a lot stronger.
"Are you American?" Elizabeth asked, getting up and putting on her sunglasses again.
The directness of the question threw Burger for a second. He hesitated. Finally he found himself saying, "Canadian. Same sort of accent, I guess." He wondered why he found it necessary to lie to a kid of nine.
"Is that a lumberjack shirt?" Thelma asked.
Burger looked down at the shirt and laughed. "Right!" he cried. "Smart kid. You'd make quite a detective. Sure, it's a lumberjack shirt. Everybody in Canada wears them. Now what was the name of that villa . . . ?"
"Villa Printemps," said Thelma.
Burger took out a pair of sunglasses and put them on before he stepped out of the shade of the awning and into the street. The heat hit him at once, beating down from above, bouncing up from the cobbled surface of the square. He was glad he'd gotten out of the worsted suit on the cross-channel ferry and put on something cooler.
[p. 39]
They drove around the empty town square, then north along the coast road. The sea was invisible beyond the solid bank of pines that covered the dunes to their left. In a hundred yards they made a left into the trees and hit a dirt road covered in compressed pine needles. Burger cut the speed. The trees closed over their head and the sunlight became no more than an occasional filtered shaft penetrating the less dense foliage.
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File: lsbook01.htm
Updated: December 22, 1998
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